Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Vintage Nerd Alert

Nerds. You have to love 'em. Especially vintage nerds. Today's post hails from April 1963, and our first image shows Papa Nerd, the man who gave us the child featured in the rest of the shots you will see here. You can see by the uncomfortable gaze and awkward pose that this man was once a nerd, too. For all we know, his nerd-dom could have continued into adulthood. Chances are, it did.

And here we have the star of today's post, the ultimate vintage nerd. Glasses…check. Embarrassing clothing…check. Military-style haircut…check. Jeans rolled up by mama…check. This kid has it in spades.

The shot shown here is why I bought this set in the first place.

How about these Monsanto House of the Future panels? Timex, Sylvania, Crane, and Bell Systems. This little nerd was obviously in future-career heaven!

Back to Central Plaza for another uncomfortable photograph. Stiff posture with belly sticking out…check! The day must have been getting hotter as the sweater has now disappeared.

The Snow White Wishing Well was a mere two years old at the time this photo was taken.

10 comments:

1963 was the first year I visited Disneyland. The clothing, the haircut and glasses pretty much match what I wore as a child around that time. I even had a red sweater with black & white trim just the kid featured in today's post is wearing. It's always a joy to wake up to your blog in the morning. Thanks, Dave.

Wonderful! Nerd or not, this kid is Kool (see what I did there with the 'K'?) What I enjoy about these photos is Dopey is still holding his fishing pole at the Wishing Well. There are plenty of benches and fresh flowers and no railings around the planters. Gotta love Disneyland!

I'm having a little trouble picturing where the House of the Future shot was taken. I don't remember those panels and such. Of course, that was a long time ago. It looks like that seating area must have been on the far side of the House, maybe adjacent to the Matterhorn walkway.

As a nerd and a kid who could have easily been in this pic, I found nothing offensive. If you can't laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at? Still, our society is filled with hypersensitive people eager to beat on their drum and shove their doctrine of political correctness down everyone's throat until we see it like they do. ( Mandatory "compassion!" ) All others are "wrong" and need sensitivity training to be more like the PC masses, this is "fair."

I wonder if Anonymous is the kid in the pics, all grown up? If so, I'm a big fan of yours. I loved you in the movie "Falling Down."

About Me

Photographer/artist for hire and pop culture junkie. My art has been on “Larry King Live!”, book published, and gallery exhibited. I take a lot of photographs and spend way too much time at Disneyland.